This group of
photographs by Sheffy Bleier presents inner organs of the cow (kidneys, stomach,
udder) suspended on strings. Besides their references to the genre of
game still life, and, especially, kitchen and butcher's stall still life, these
photographs reflect the artist's preoccupation with transposition of the inner
parts of the body (innards) into the realm of aesthetics, of fully visible
beauty. That which is completely hidden, concealed, residing within the inner
recesses of the body; that which for the most part is relegated to the status
of the repulsive, of "waste" even in terms of consumption (stomach)
– these organs are ennobled and presented as more than fit for aesthetic
contemplation. Furthermore, some of the organs are turned inside out, so that
the emblem of the "inside" is transformed into complete "outside",
into surface, while retaining their mysteriousness as objects of display.

Another frame of
reference that remains active in those images is that of photography as
document, especially the photography that serves wholly utilitarian ends, namely,
police and medical photography, including medical illustrations. In particular,
in autopsies body organs are carefully weighted, photographed, and, of course, analyzed
for indications of foul play or simply causes of death. Similarly to the
transformation of the "inner" into the "outer", the artist
is preoccupied with the link between the wholly utilitarian, non-art dimension
of photography, on the one hand, and the aesthetic concerns, on the other hand.

Ultimately, the
question that lurks in these images is that of the possibility of reaching the
sublime, the spiritual through the medium that appears wholly antithetical to
it – body's inner organs. True, the organs are not "raw meat" – which
borders on the horror of the formless – for they retain well-defined forms and
texture. And it is precisely their form and texture – mysterious, yet
troublingly familiar – that turns them into visual medium of something utterly
different from their materiality. They become an "alien body", the
body that offers another route to the beautifu,l that manages to escape the
bodily materiality while remaining wholly embedded in it.